The left-wing blogosphere, which stopped listening to Reid's press conference immediately after hearing the words "public option," celebrated a tad too early. I'm not even sure what they were celebrating, since no one actually knew what was in the bill Reid was touting. But we long ago passed the point where supporting a bill required knowledge of what was in the bill.
The next day, Joe Lieberman expressed a view, shared by several Democratic Senators, that he felt a public option would be counter-productive, and would not vote for cloture (allowing a filibuster to succeed):
"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now."Leading left-wing blogs, which just a day before had been declaring victory, have not exactly reacted with the type of civility they demanded of Republican Joe Wilson, when Wilson shouted "you lie" at President Obama:
- Hullabaloo: "But it always seemed absurd to me to trust good old Lieb since he's become a bitter, angry, resentful, creepy, arch conservative, vengeful old fuck (which isn't all that different than he always was, but he used to be a little bit constricted by his religious image.)"
- Crooks and Liars: "Can we strip this traitor of his chairmanships already?"
- DownWithTyranny!: "Of course the loathsome snotrag lies with every breath he draws. He's wholly owned by the Moneyed Interests.... Okay, the gloves are off. Now that the little bug has taken his stand, it's time to squash him."
- Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money: "his office should be transferred to a broom closet somewhere in Camden."
- Emptywheel: "He is either completely ignorant about health care works (unlikely, for a Senator from Connecticut). Or, he’s lying his ass off as to his rationale."
- mcjoan at DailyKos: "Lieberman doesn't care, and knows that Politico and AP and WaPo and any number of outlets don't care, so he'll keep on lying."
- Bill Scher at HuffPo: "Lieberman Lies About the Public Option."
- MyDD: "Joe, you ignorant war-monger, you."
- OpenLeft: "Liar."
Meanwhile, in other Democratic civility news, President Barack Obama held a fundraiser for Alan Grayson, praising Grayson as an "outstanding member of Congress," just days after it was disclosed that Grayson called an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a "whore." Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner said of Grayson: “Is this news to you that this guy’s one fry short of a Happy Meal?”
Yeah, but that doesn't mean Grayson can't be "an outstanding Democratic member of Congress."
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Told Ya So On Reid's Empty Hand
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Ole Joe can take the heat. He is after all the Liberal lefts’ Olympia Snow.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it’s pretty obvious the Harry knew his ‘public option’ ploy was doomed to failure. But, he needed to fake out to his leftie base and pretend he was full speed ahead on socialized health care. Look, it worked, didn’t it? Gotta give Reid credit where credit is due.
In the meanwhile, the war continues…
The whole thing is pretty funny -- especially when Joe had already pretty much said (before Reid's announcement) what he would do: namely, vote for cloture to allow a leadership bill to be debated on the floor but then vote to block any bill he didn't like from Senate approval. It's just that no one had apparently put the two parts together in one sentence before.
ReplyDeleteThe left had their shot at Joe and failed to defeat him even in the hyped-up anti-war atmosphere of 2006, and it's hard to see an issue like this unseating him three years from now.
As for "punishing" him by snatching away his chairmanships, that's a surefire way to push him into the GOP caucus -- plus, what do they then do to Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and other moderates? Expel them from the Party? Send them to a camp in Siberia for reeducation?